While Capcom’s announcement that Switch versions of Resident Evil Zero, 1 and 4 are coming on 21st May should be cause for celebration, the pricing of said games has been the cause of consternation for many fans. North America will get a combined physical version of Zero and Resident Evil, although it seems Resident Evil 4 won’t get a physical release in any territory and us Europeans won’t see any of them on a cartridge.

Prices don’t compare favourably to other platforms, either, where the games have been available for some time. Currently listed for £29.99 each on the eShop in the UK, the triple pack is going for £39.99 on Xbox One and PS4, and cries bemoaning ‘Switch tax’ are doing the rounds once again. This is hardly the first time these games have been exhumed and we doubt it’ll be the last, so where does Capcom get off charging so much?

ICYMI: Resident Evil 0, 1, and 4 are coming to the Nintendo Switch eShop as individual digital downloads! Pre-order today and get playing as soon as all three games are available on May 21! 🌿 pic.twitter.com/eX2B5qQ7oL— Resident Evil (@RE_Games) February 28, 2019

Well, we’ve discussed the infamous ‘Switch tax’ before, although we’re not sure it really applies in this case. After all, Capcom has form charging top-dollar for everything – digital or otherwise. Regardless of the cost on the countless other platforms it’s available on, is it really a surprise that Capcom is going to charge as much as possible from the outset?

The company’s entrance onto Nintendo’s hybrid platform was a cautious one. It dipped its toe in the water with Ultra Street Fighter II, an HD version of its classic 2D fighter which launched on the console for an eye-watering $40. Fans baulked at paying that for yet another version of Street Fighter II, but it didn’t stop a significant number of them buying the game – it was a ‘smash hit’ according to Capcom itself and prompted the company to jump fully onboard the Switch train.

We’ve seen a variety of releases since, from Mega Man 11 and Mega Man Legacy Collection to the Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, and they’ve all done very well on Switch. While Capcom’s strategy remains puzzling at times (we can’t think of a good reason why Disney Afternoon Collection hasn’t come to Switch yet), Nintendo’s console is turning a tidy profit for the Japanese company.

With the release of Resident Evil 4 – one of the best-rated video games of all time – it’s no wonder Capcom is looking to wring as much cash as possible out of impatient gamers eager to play the game on their favourite portable. It’s business, and like any other, making money is the real game.

We’ve seen Capcom experiment before with pricing on Switch; the cloud-based version of Resident Evil 7 in Japan is a good example. Unlike Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Cloud Version which launched with a full ¥8,400 price tag (around £60/$75), Capcom tried a different model with their cloud-only offering. Following a 15-minute taster, a ‘play ticket’ – essentially a six-month ‘subscription’ to the game – cost ¥2,000 (around £13/$18).

It’s unclear exactly how this approach fared, but it seemed like a stingy proposition at the time. While Capcom had hinted that success in this area may lead to further streamed games, an answer given during a Q&A with investors last October provides an indication as to its success:

Q. What is your current situation as well as your future outlook on developing for cloud gaming?

A. While we did release a certain title supporting cloud gaming in the first half, this was done primarily for technological research purposes and did not have a significant impact on earnings. Based on the results of this research, we will internally consider further expansion into cloud gaming.

The cloud-based game in question must be Resident Evil 7, and it appears not to have been the money-spinner the company hoped. Of course, the game had expected connectivity issues outside Japan, but even in optimal conditions, it wasn't perfect.

While it may have been a worthwhile experiment, if Capcom has trouble streaming games in Japan, it’s unlikely to have much success elsewhere and anybody hoping to see Monster Hunter World on Switch in some capacity will likely be disappointed. Monster Hunter World brought the series a global level of success that Capcom must be looking for ways to expand upon, but the message from Switch owners is that it needn’t bother. We can argue about Switch ‘tax’ and greedy businesses until the cows come home, but ultimately 450,000 people bought Ultra Street Fighter II in its first quarter – a game which didn’t enjoy the warmest critical reception – sending the message that they’ll pay the ‘ludicrous’ price of £39.99/$39.99 for the privilege. Seen from that perspective, Capcom probably thinks £30 for Resident Evil 4 is a bargain.

Don't look at us - we didn't buy it!

On top of this, the looming economic question block hanging over the UK and EU arguably plays into this topic as well. Europeans have always put up with higher prices in comparison to gamers across the pond and upcoming uncertainty in Britain (we’re not going to even write the irritating portmanteau that’s defining a generation of UK politics) will only make pricing an even more contentious issue in the near future. While the narrative of ‘Switch tax’ is an easy one to subscribe to, Nintendo Life reader James M. points out that, the upcoming Ace Attorney Trilogy has been listed for £30/$30 across all platforms where previous ports Okami HD and Onimusha launched last year for £15.99/$19.99.

That price difference could simply be Capcom being characteristically inconsistent, or it might suggest caution regarding potentially chaotic currency fluctuations in the coming months. The calamitous manner by which the British government is extricating itself from continental Europe isn’t helping any businesses with interests in the UK, and unfortunately, the general public will likely endure rising prices across the board as foreign companies are forced to deflect costs. Selling digital goods may give more control, but they’re subject to exchange rate fluctuations like any other and video game companies will also want to ensure parity between physical goods and digital equivalents as far as possible in order to keep retailers happy. No company will knowingly undercharge for its products, regardless of the financial climate, and the current economic uncertainty only compounds problems (this does not, of course, explain why Capcom is charging $30 for the game in North America).

In many ways, it could be argued that Nintendo gamers have never had it so good. The weekly eShop sales on Switch make it a massive departure from any previous Nintendo home console. No, the discounts don’t compare to the vast savings periodic Steam sales offer, but to see a £20/€20/$20 discount on first-party games without a Player’s Choice line within the first two years of a console’s lifecycle is unheard of on Nintendo platforms.

Must not buy, must not buy, must not buy...

And is £29.99 too much for Resident Evil 4? Only last week we spoke about Link’s Awakening and its supposed $60 price tag; Resident Evil 4 is one of the best games of all time and we’re hungry for it on Switch. We recognise porting it takes much more work than simply clicking the 'Export .switch' button, however much practice Capcom has had resurrecting it again and again. The developer must have its RE porting pipeline running efficiently, that’s for sure. We imagine it’s currently working on Resident Evil 2 for Switch – would we be surprised if that were to launch as a $60 game in a year’s time?

Ultimately, Capcom believes gamers will pay £30 to play Resident Evil 4 – and the upcoming Dragon's Dogma – on Switch, and based on all the available evidence, that's probably right. Not buying it is the only way to send Capcom a message if prices like that rub you the wrong way. The only form of protest is to vote with your wallet and not buy the game at that price; it’ll surely join those lovely eShop sales soon enough. There’s more than enough to be playing in the meantime, and more than enough ways to play Resident Evil 4, too.

So, what’ll it be, stranger? Do you have the willpower to wait a few months until these games get an inevitable discount? Is Capcom just being greedy? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Gavin loves a bit of couch co-op, especially when he gets to delegate roles, bark instructions and give much-appreciated performance feedback at the end. He lives in Spain (the plain-y bit where the rain mainly falls) and his love for Banjo-Kazooie borders on the unhealthy.

Capcom is a business. They are well within their rights to charge as much as they want for their games. Wait for a sale or use some of your points to make the game cheaper. It has never actually been cheaper to be a Nintendo gamer. If you don’t remember how expensive it was to own an N64 in Australia then you have no basis for comparison what kind of oasis for your wallet the Switch is.

We have this discussion now and all will agree that Capcom is off their rocker, but in a few months everyone will be happy to pay 60 bucks for Link's Awakening Remake and Pokemon game made mostly with 3DS assets.

Capcom dissapoints me a lot with their pricing and physical releases on the Switch.

(the following is my personal opinion)

Street Fighter 2 was extremely overpriced for what it is, for me it felt like Tetris 99 would release on the Switch for €50 because well WE CAN.

Okami HD, Ace Attorney Trilogy, Capcom Beat ‘Em Up and Onimusha have fine prices but it is a big shame we never got a physical release of it in the west and that importing the Japanese version with english text is the only option.

Megaman games, I as a EU citizen felt betrayed because we didn't get any physical release of it on the Switch while on the other 2 systems we did, and while the US did get physical copies the Collections only had the first game on cartridge and second as a download so again importing from Japan was needed if you wanted the physical games, luckily the prices are okay.

Resident Evil Revelation games, again EU got nothing and US only the first game physical while the second one which is a whooping 25+ gb download was digital only, a big shame but at least the ports are fine.

Resident Evil 7, simply put a disgusting practice but I can't say more about it because it's japan only.

Resident Evil 0,1 and 4, from what I heard in the US 0 and 1 get a physical pack where 1 of the games is physical, but aside from that the games are all the each at least 12gb in size which is worring me because of how much the compression is and if the games won't look bad or have bad loading times, also the price that is just a big joke and even if you are a HUGE RE fan you shouldn't buy them for that money, they are great games but Capcom should be less greedy.

The only game I have zero complaints about is Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, it was a 3ds games and japan only, 6 months later it got a japanese Switch release and 1 year later we got it in the west, game works great, looks fine and oddly enough there is nothing wrong with it on any front (I mean they even used a 16gb cartridge for it and even the EU got a physical release of it)

Aside from the unfair complaining about the game, people forget that it came out before World did in Japan, in first place we would never get it because of World but people complained.

MHGU is a example that Capcom knows how to do it but refuses to.

The conclusion is that Capcom screws it up on the Switch, EU barely gets any physical releases but even the US lacks some or has download codes, also the prices are fine but still higher than on other platforms which is a sad practice.

@Preposterous Link's Awakening is not made with 3DS assets because the 3DS would not even handle that, as for Pokemon I won't say anything yet about it, Let's Go games did look like glorified 3DS games for the most part but we can't conclude same about the new Pokémon games until we have seen enough real gameplay of it.

Until that as for Pokemon games I keep my opinion neutral.

@NeoAkiba True I always wait for a sale unless I really must have the game NOW, but that only goes for new stuff most of the time.

More and more I think about it. I'm holding out until it drops to $20. I don't NEED to play RE.. I just really wanted to. What was a day 1 purchase for all 3 games turned into 0 purchases until a price drop

Do we actually know Link's Awakening is 60 bucks? To me, it's either not 60 bucks, or they haven't talked about something else. I mean...it's tile based so hell, the whole thing might be a ruse for Zelda Maker.

"but in a few months everyone will be happy to pay 60 bucks for Link's Awakening Remake and Pokemon game made mostly with 3DS assets."

For me it's simple if someone say it "uses 3ds assets" that means the game should be able to run on the 3ds with those graphics or at least there is same or different game that uses them, there is none because the 3DS would not be able to handle that.

You didn't say LA was on the 3DS, but you do say it uses 3DS assets which is also false.

Unless you meant that for the Pokemon game only, but your comment looks like you mean it for both games.

Yes it is too much, the exact same game is basically half the price on other consoles and was when it launched on them. Onimusha is comparable and that came at the same price as on other consoles and ironically they did more work on that game then they will have on these, given all of what little updating they received was done years ago.

You can't compare it to Links Awakening as that has been built from the ground up for Switch, only using the original as a template.

However for balance Nintendo are far more guilty of this than Capcom with a string of barebones ports of Wii U games moved to Switch for £50 each

@Rayquaza2510 Not my intention at all. I've seen some people saying that at some point in development it could have been a 3DS title, but I don't think this notion is worth entertaining due to lack of any supporting evidence.The 3DS part was in relation only to Pokemon.

@carlos82 Indeed I still want Donkey Kong on the Switch but paying €60 for a game that is €25 on the Wii U (because Select title) is too much of the good.

@Preposterous In that case sorry for my misunderstanding, as for the Pokémon game again I stay neutral but looking at the Let's Go games I will say it is very possible the new Pokemon games on the Switch will look like "glorified" 3ds games.

I hope I'm wrong, and even while the shown footage was sparse the graphical quality of it was quite weak, but then again Gamefreak is not known for making good performing games (maybe nintendo should take it over, I still remember the stutters all 3DS Pokemon games had in double/triple battles.

I will buy the Pokemon games because I love the content, but since the ORAS games I am dissapointed with their performance onwards (X & Y got a exception because I assumed it had such performance because they didn't know the system well enough)

@Rayquaza2510 My thoughts exactly. Pokemon models themselves are something made for Pokemon XY back in the day and nothing shown in the trailer looked like a game made for a system many times stronger than 3DS. Art style is one thing, but characters, map design and even battles looked way too similar to those seen on 3DS.That's what I meant in my original comment: criticizing Capcom is definitely just, but we should be consistent and not give a pass to developers under the Nintendo banner, as though Gamefreak was some indie developer with tight budget.

I was going to buy resident evil 4 as I haven’t played it since the GameCube days and have a lot of nostalgia for it. £30 is too much for me to justify a purchase. It’s just poor value for money, the game is old now. Just as a comparison, it only cost me £17 for Wargroove and I’ve already got 65 hours out of that brilliant new game.

"Seen from that perspective, Capcom probably thinks £30 for Resident Evil 4 is a bargain"

And so do I. Signed: nhSnork, your worst nightmare. X^)

The only reason I rebuff "sheep" accusations (entertaining and honourable to hear from enraged fans otherwise) is because the label comes with unequippable halos for me. It's hard to talk of serious "support" when I may easily pass on a game's full price release (due to other expenses or even just simply getting more immediately tempted by another title) and then make use of a later sale with no qualms if stars so align. And it's quite audacious of me to boast the money I give to the publishers after the whole damn multitude of games I've emulated or run on CFW in my life; factors like comatose local retail and import prospects may explain such behaviour, but I won't pretend that they're supposed to excuse it. I owe the industry a lot more than I pay it.

And if I don't pretend to be a saint myself here, don't expect me to encourage that pretence in others. Including any kind of pretence that, were we to find ourselves in Capcom's shoes, we would act any differently.

I still don't understand why RE4'S not getting a physical release. If it doesnt include gyro pointer controls I'll most likely pass. Playing it on the go I don't think will be enough for me. Still, it's sooo tempting.
Playing it with a pro controller alone or even the joy cons is more suitable than the PS4's awkward lower analog stick placement. So there's that.

Remake and zero? Again, tempting to just have for portability for kicks and being on a Nintendo console...again. still, Zero is one of the weakest resident evil's and to be quite honest my experience with the remake back on the cube was a little underwhelming. I despised it's painfully boring try hard-scary muddy(brown, grey and pale geens-only) color scheme of the mansions interior compared to the more livable PS1 originals. It's still one of the best in the series but I feel it gets just a 'little' more praise than it desserves

I LOVE Resident Evil 4, I will never forget buying a GameCube for it, and the Wii Edition is even better. I’m totally up for buying it for a third time on Switch but... not at launch at that price I’m sorry. It is still a fantastic game, one of my all time favourites and it’s well worth what they’re asking... but I personally am not paying £30 when I’ve already bought it twice on Nintendo systems. If you haven’t played it before, you’re in for a treat. But you probably have played it before lol

I’m gonna send a strong message by buying the game soon as it comes out (Resident Evil 1) I’m 36 yrs old and loved that game since it’s release on PS1 many years back. $30 stinks but I’m not so tight that I want to wait however many months for a possible $10 drop. Switch tax stinks but It seems to be the way it is.

Capcom milk the money out of those willing to pay through the nose to play immediately and then slash the price with a headline 50% discount, the price that it should have been to start with. It makes sense for them but not for gamers.

The article is right. If no body buys it at full price then they shouldn't try to charge that much again.

I like 4, enjoyed it on my GameCube! No need to spend £30 to play again.

Not all of Nintendo’s games are $60. Recall that Captain Toad on Switch, WiiU and 3DS was $40. Additionally, Sushi Striker is $50 for the switch edition. I hope that Nintendo doesn’t charge $60 for Link’s Awakening unless they are willing to jam pack it with additional content (perhaps include Link’s Awakening DX from the Gameboy, changes to increase the amount of dungeons, etc).

As for Capcom, $30 a game isn’t too bad for solidly good titles even if they are a bit old. I was personally hoping for $20 a game like RE Revelations and Revelations 2, but no such luck I guess. I’ll be waiting for a sale on these titles.

I'm going to wait for a RE4 sale, $20 and I'm probably in. I think I only paid $10 for RE4 on Xbox1 last year. Maybe this is the time I finally say not on this console (but RE4 on the go.....). Bought the Revelations games on Switch though and loved them.

I have enough games to play in the meantime and own all 3 games on Xbox1 if I really feel like playing them. I can wait or possibly pass all together.

It’s annoying because if we choose not to buy it - the game company says ‘oh it was the wrong game for system etc.’ rather than realising it was just a rip off and people actually would love it if it had been done right / priced right.

Sure, let's boycott the game at their retail price in the first few months. But consider this, if the game doesn't sell well in those first few months, the publisher/devs, in this case Capcom, will assume that we don't want the game and won't keep making them for that platform, in this case, the Switch. Is the risk worth it?

It's going to be the same for me. I love these games, but I'm waiting for a sale both physically and digitally for 4. This price gouging Nintendo Switch games is an outrageous practice and I wish people would just outright not buy them to send a clear message they need to have price parity or just be plain fair with their pricing. Greedy ass mother**** make me sick.

Don’t you guys have Playstations?
You can get like 3 Resident evil games for 15€ during a sale. Same goes for many other multi platform games.
For switch I’m only buying exclusives, since I can’t convince myself to pay the switch tax.

Why even wait to buy one RE game for 20€ during sale, when you can get triple game collection for 15?

@UnbreakableAlex though you generalized as if everyone "have phones", most here don't have the budget to buy another console. Others, unfortunately, are too much fans of Nintendo that won't buy another console to later whine about why X or Y game isn't on their precious Nintendo system.

There's been a moderate outcry about this so someone at Capcom PR may have heard, it doesn't mean I think they'll change their policies but further down the line there may be some big sales or a permanent discount.

@UnbreakableAlex I have all three of these on Xbox 360, being mostly a portable gamer, the portability is the only reason i'm interested in rebuying, I just don't want to be £90 out of pocket for the privilege.

Capcom hiking the price on Switch won't make me consider buying it on PS4, it'll just make me wait for a sale, I'm in no hurry.

@UnbreakableAlex@graysoncharles The reason to get it on switch is to be able to play it anywhere not just at home. Most games I get on switch. Exclusives and multiplats I can't play on Switch I get on my PS4. Also I think most people that have a switch have a PC or PS4, people that own a switch only are in the minority.

For example I've held off on buying DQ 11 cuz it's coming to switch with a definite version no less however DMC5 obviously I'll be getting on PS4.

@graysoncharles Let's be honest here. Capcom clearly intends to support the Switch almost exclusively with overpriced old ports. If their continued support depends on me working against my best interest as a consumer, then I say good riddance. I can get all of their games much cheaper on Steam. I got these three games, for example, for $20 TOTAL.

These can. They are actually more than what they launched for on other systems. And it seems very uncharacteristic of them given how well their pricing has been on every other game. It’s hogwash and they should be called out.

That being said, we’re talking what, an extra $10 per game? Eh. Life’s too short to cheat yourself out of games you wanna play over the price of #6 at McDonalds. I pre-ordered the games already, because even though it aggravates me, in the grand scheme of things this is small potatoes, and I just wanna play the games.

Now, if Resident Evil 4 doesn’t have motion, that will seriously trigger me. But this? Eh, it’s an aggravation based on principle. But it’s not exactly breaking my wallet or anything.

Bit of a nerve when RE4 has had countless rereleases over the years and appearing on every Nintendo home console since the Gamecube (If you count the Wii U eShop rerelease of the Wii version.). Should not be a penny over £15.

May as well wait for the next discount on other systems. All 3 are often around £6 in XBONE Sales.

I'm disappointed in Capcom's exploitative pricing with these releases. While I understand that some people might be excited to play these classic games on Switch, I hope they'll wait a while for a sale or price drop and send Capcom the message that this isn't acceptable.

A real pity, considering something like Okami HD was priced the same as it was on other platforms AND had additional touchscreen functionality.

I was fully planning on repurchasing REmake, as it's one of the greatest horror games ever made and belongs on a Nintendo console. But now I'm waiting for a very steep price drop (50% or more, at least) before buying in. I don't appreciate this price gouging on Capcom's part.

These questions should really be pointed at Nintendo's policy regarding digital and physical pricing parity, I'm sure it's been outlined here before but Nintendo require pricing to be higher for digital games when they have matching physical products. I'd imagine this is more because of Nintendo's policies.

I wish this article included some proper analysis of why Nintendo Switch games are more expensive than other formats. There are a variety of factors at play here:

Cartridges cost more to manufacture due to the use of flash memory which has different capacity sizes. By comparison, CDs have a standard manufacturing cost, but the size can vary, so they are relatively inexpensive by comparison

It has been confirmed that 32GB Switch carts cost the publisher $20 just for the cart! Other carts are similarly expensive in relative terms – so publishers uprate their prices to reflect this.

As cartridge sizes increase, so do the relative manufacturing costs

Price parity policies distort the market and result in higher costs for digital games than would otherwise be the case

Even when a game isn’t produced physically, the same rules apply in case a physical edition is ever made. The only exemption to this rule is for Collectors Editions, which are allowed to vary their price.

Publishers are already paying a fee to get their game published on the Switch, so asking them to absorb the additional cost of higher cartridge formats would make it unprofitable to bring many games to the platform.

Ultimately, this is Nintendo’s problem as they could either cut the price of the cartridges or perhaps waive / absorb these costs to encourage more publishers to come to the Switch.

I’m waiting. Capcom games go on sale for 40-50% on the eShop all the time. Ubisoft too. Never worth buying their games at launch. Don’t even have to wait that long. Bet we see a steep sale within 2 months.

Nintendo eshop is an overpriced environment (both in pricing and sales of first party and third party games) and mere comments wouldn’t change anything. Stop buying overpriced games. Nintendo and all other developers are business entities and they use every opportunity to charge you more and more. They only listen to sales figure and competition. Arguments and comments are of no use. Don’t buy their overpriced games and if you can, buy the same game on the platform that give you the cheapest offer. In other words, stop being a “Nintendo gamer”, just be a gamer, and everyone will profit.

@psanco Considering these games aren’t getting a physical release in Europe (or here in Australia), what price parity does Capcom (or your incorrect assumption that Nintendo) have to adhere to? Also this has nothing to do with Nintendo. This is all on Capcom. It’s baffling that I’m reading comments from various gaming sites and there are people who actually think that Nintendo sets the prices for products of other companies...

—

I do have a few questions though - What were the release prices on the other platforms? We’re they the same as these Switch releases? Will they eventually drop to be on par with the others over time?

The biggest question that I have is one that I haven’t even seen asked on the major sites, and that is: Are there any improvements or additions coming to these releases? My most wanted being gyroscopic aiming for RE4 (as it exists in the Revelations releases). IF RE4 has gyro aiming added for the Switch release I personally would would be willing to shell out on day 1.

...However if this is just a straight, no frills port with zero differences, then I am with most other people on the “wait for the eventual 40% off sale.” And I will wait for 40% off, because they have set the precedent with their previous Revelations sales.

@Supadav03 Thanks for replying. It is one of the factors as the price parity rules still apply to digital games - they have to be priced in an equivalent way to physical games.

For example, the reason Sega made Sonic Mania Plus a collectors edition with a booklet etc is that otherwise the price parity rules bwould have applied and they would have been forced to retail it at the digital price (£15.99) and possibly made a loss due to the cartridge costs.

Also, we don't know what the fee regime is for digital only titles by Nintendo, so there could be some additional costs from that perspective.

Here in Europe, Link's Awakening is a 50€ game and not 60€. BotW was a 70€ game at launch. Anyway, since RE games are only coming digitally, I'll wait for the inevitable 75% off discount in the future. I'm in no hurry to play these games again.

@Yoshi87 : The $20 rumour is completely untrue and hasn't been substantiated by a credible source. It has simply been parroted to death, and as the old saying goes, when a lie is repeated frequently enough, it is believed to be true.

The other week, I noticed that 32GB flash drives were selling for under AU$6. This is post-manufacturing cost, possibly involving a middleman, and including a profit margin to the store selling the item. A Switch cartridge, which is read-only by the way, would cost less to manufacture than a drive of similar capacity. Yes, I imagine that larger capacity cartridges may cost about as much, if not more, than a 50GB Blu-ray, but I strongly doubt that the cost difference is prohibitive, that is unless there is some transparency in the matter, and so far, no publisher has revealed the actual costs of publishing physical games on Switch.

Furthermore, Capcom has released budget-priced games on 16GB carts. I refuse to believe that developers cannot release full-priced games on 32GB cartridges while still turning a healthy profit, especially two years after the release of the Switch, as flash memory would be substantially cheaper now than it was in 2017.

@Yoshi87 Do you have a source for the cost of the 32g cartridge? That price seems outlandishly high, and the only semi-official figure I can find with Google is a quote from Daniel Ahmad saying that a 32g card costs publishers 60% more than the cost of a 50g Blu-Ray disc for PS4. If your $20 is correct, that would mean PS4 discs cost the publishers $12.50, which I'm pretty sure is not anywhere near the case, seeing as how writeable 50g BD discs cost about $1.50 at retail.

Why can finally finish stumbling off the financial cliff already so we can new management. This company is an empty husk being by suits who exploit nostalgia for their own profit without considering ways they could also innovate and improve the industry in any meaningful way. They have little passion for their work and quite frankly do not live up to the legacy of the Capcom name.

@JasmineDragon : From my own experience, 25GB Blu-rays cost me AU$1.20 and 50GB discs cost about AU$3.30 each. I imagine that pressed discs produced in commercial quantities would cost less, especially as my figures are the cost to me after the manufacturer, and presumably at least one middleman has taken their cut. I would also assume that burnable Blu-rays are priced a bit higher than they otherwise could be priced at as they are selling in extremely low quantities when compared to DVDs.

I thought they released these for $20 each on the PS3/360 and now they're are charging $40 on the Switch. That isn't a Switch tax, its daylight robbery. They'll likely just be the same upscaled HD versions, which I thought looked a bit weird because of some of the lower quality assets. I'm doubtful that they'll even patch in motion controls either as support was a bit sketchy on the HD releases.

I'll likely be sticking with my Wii copies, as I think RE4 in particular is the definitive version.

@Crono1973 Read the other comments from people complaining that Capcom are big money bag toting meanies who don’t price things in a way they deem appropriate. As long as those individuals haven’t made that simple connection then it will continue to be said.

RE4 is a great game that I never got around to beating. I can wait for it to go to $20 or less on a sale, or pair it with my Best Buy GCU discount to reach that price if a physical version releases. I have so many other games I can play in the meantime anyway so no loss here. I played ball with Capcom on Ultra Street Fighter II shortly after it launched, but $30 for a digital copy is a stretch even for me on this title.

Business is business, CAPCOM doesn't owe their fanbase anything at this point. Fans or gamers should speak with their wallets. And to be honest, if you can't afford it you can't afford it. If you can, good for you.

And is £29.99 too much for Resident Evil 4? Only last week we spoke about Link’s Awakening and its supposed $60 price tag; Resident Evil 4 is one of the best games of all time and we’re hungry for it on Switch.

Sorry, you are comparing now apple to oranges. Resident Evil 4 is merely a port. Link's Awakening is a full remaster, freshly prepared for the Switch. I would not bat an eye to a 29,99 Euro price tag, if those RE titles would be remastered for the Switch.

You know I got Original RE pack for PC. DVD's are in but you still have to activate it through steam account. And I only paid 9.99 euro for these 2 titles. RE1HD and RE0HD. If it can be sold on PC for these 2 games and they used even like 6dvd's to fit the games. Switch getting them on a physical release on 1 card and asking a lot more money.... doesn't make sense here. These games are old and should be max 9.99 per game. Kinda sad isn't it

I love Resi 4. I own it on GC, PS2, Wii and PS4 and you know what, I prob would buy a copy for Switch but not at this price. It will come down in sales and I will just have to wait. The lack of physical is also off putting too.

I'll get them under €10-15 digital, or physical at a combined price of 60 tops. Played all of these (great!) games countless times before, still have them on Cube and Wii (and REmake on PS4 as well). The Wii version of RE4 was worth a double dip, with the way better controls, but revisiting the game for the 30th time or so with the only bonus of portability isn't to me, not at this price or anywhere near it, without even a physical game (let alone the beauty of full colour manuals).

People may pay it if there was a physical version, but digital only? No way, will wait until they do a sale, maybe but doubt it. Got enough previously released games (FF IX and FF VII & FF X on the way) to play already

We have to be careful when "voting with our wallets" because that made the Wii U port situation worse with devs/publishers assuming we simply don't want their games. More so with Capcom who treat expensive releases to guage interest

@dcamp335 Nobody is telling you anything, it's your money after all. A lot of people, including me don't feel to pay these prices, especially with it being considerably cheaper on other systems and express themselves accordingly. No matter my opinion on the price, I wish you fun, come may.

@Preposterous The Pokémon models in the 3DS games were purposely created to be of higher quality than the 3DS would need to display and were actually scaled down to run in games like X, Y, Sun and Moon. GameFreak did this so they wouldn’t have to remake each of the 800+ existing models when the series jumped to HD. So if you want to get technical, the 3DS games were made with scaled down assets intended for a much higher fidelity game. And besides, reusing assets for 800+ Pokémon only makes sense when they look as good as they do. Why insist they arbitrarily redo everything from scratch when it would all look mostly the same, anyway? That’s a ridiculous waste of resources. Seems to me you’re just trolling.

@thesilverbrick Thanks for stating the obvious, but please tell me why Pokemon games on Switch should be more expensive than those on the 3DS if key development was done beforehand. That's the subject of this article: developers arbitrarily charging extra for their products.

I'll say it once again....Lol!!! at all the broke asses in the comment section complaining about a tiny little 30$ price tag lmaooo. Go get a job you bums lol McDonalds will pay you enough to afford these so you wont have to ask your grandma for all 3. Which I imagine is why everyone is so burnt up over it. Bc any adult with a job, if they look at 30 bucks and say ouch!! Obviously isnt fairing too well with their finances....

@Preposterous The only things made beforehand were the Pokémon models themselves. The world, NPCs, scenario, etc are all being made from scratch after the fact. This isn’t a port of anything. This is a full priced game for the same reason Mario Galaxy 2 and Majora’s Mask were full priced games. They may have reused some assets, but this is a new game and required thousands of hours of manpower to complete. Belittling it and trying to make it out as less than that simply because it upscales the existing Pokémon models (for sensible reasons) is just ridiculous.

As you say, the cost has probably fallen somewhat since. We also don’t know how much Nintendo retails the carts for as we are all assuming they retail at the same price as the manufacturing cost – whereas I would bet that Nintendo retails them through the manufacturer to third parties at a slightly higher cost. I have no evidence for that, but just an educated guess.

I am not saying that pricing isn’t influenced by Capcom’s own decisions, but merely that this is simply one factor at pay here. People do need to look at the big picture as game pricing is influenced by lots of factors.

The cost has probably fallen somewhat since. I am not sure we can use this figure to correlate a price for PS4 discs as this depends on lots of factors – such as what Nintendo and Sony charge for games to published on their platform (the publishing fee) and whether they offer any incentives to third parties (I wonder if Sony might subsidise some of the costs to encourage publishers to come to their platform as they are notoriously hyper competitive)

Also we don’t know how much the cartridges retail to third parties. Theoretically, it should be just the manufacturing cost – but my guess is that Nintendo probably licenses the manufacture of the cartridges at the slightly higher cost. I have no evidence for that, but it is an educated guess based on Nintendo’s usual approach to pricing.

@Mrbayram92 Usually because of the price parity rules. Comparisons between different platforms don’t really work as game pricing will be different for Xbox One and PS4, which have been out a lot longer, and Switch which obviously has only been out two years – which does factor into the price.

I’m not defending Capcom’s pricing structure, which will influence the games. I just get tired of lazy people blaming the game publishers when it is a fact that the main culprit is Nintendo.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Nintendo – but some of their pricing policies lead to the prices of games being inflated. This is simply a fact. They could cut the price of cartridges more and drop the absurd price parity policy so that digital games cost less.

@NintndoNik Sorry, Did I make an assumption. I agree completely with your thought process here and I'm a little annoyed too. This is likely to not differ pricing through regions and because other regions will receive physical we get the heavily inflated prices. Unfortunately this has a lot to do with Nintendo, Nintendo intentionally makes it more alluring to get your products physical with inflated digital pricing, which unfortunately is policy.

People forget the Switch is tracking to be as successful as a console gets. If a game doesn’t sell at launch the publisher knows it’s on them, not the installed base. Buy your games on sale and save your pennies

@thesilverbrick Similar effort would be put into it if it was on 3DS, but pricing would be completely different just because. Recycling great amount of assets made 6 years ago does not warrant a 60 usd price tag, while being split into two versions to boot.

@Preposterous First of all, to say that making a game on 3DS and Switch take the same amount of effort is baseless. Thousands of hours are being poured into the new Pokémon games and $60 for an HD game of this scale is by no means unreasonable.
And even if it were true, that’s just game pricing for you. New Switch games cost $60 and 3DS games never are more than $40. By your own argument, similar effort went into Mario 3D Land on 3DS and Mario 3D World on Wii U, but the former retailed for $20 less than the latter.
If you don’t think Sword and Shield will offer $60 worth of game, then don’t buy them. I have every reason to believe there’s hundreds of hours of entertainment in the new Pokémon games and the $60 price tag is more than fair.

@thesilverbrick Thousands of work hours were poured into 3DS installments as well, but that doesn't really mean much in case of Gamefreak, who are pretty infamous for their supper inefficient development process and coding.Just admit to being biased and favouring Pokemon because it's a franchise you like, but don't go complaining about shady business practices performed by other game companies in the future.

Also, I like how you ignored the issue of the game being split into two versions. Not even diehard Pokemon fans know how to defend that.

At this point in time they more or less have the financial means to put on one or Two carts and charge the price and they would make a killing but stupidity does stupidity. I as other might wait for sale to get it. Unless a retailer like BestBuy give a $10 certificate then I might.

I was somewhat interested in these, but not digitally, and certainly not at these prices. I’ve bought a few of their half download releases, but only when they hit half price.

Ace Attorney is going to be $30 digital?! I’m glad I pulled the trigger on the Japanese cartridge the other day. So far most of my imports have been Capcom games: Okami, Belt Action, and now Ace Attorney. Too bad Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 didn’t get a physical release.

Well, Capcom could've also released all three games separately each on a 16GB card a piece. Or at the very least, release Re4 physically. With that said, Capcom is fully to blame for the pricing of Re4 since that's not getting a physical release whatsoever..

@Preposterous I’m all for calling out Nintendo and Pokémon when they make absurd decisions. I heavily criticized the Let’s Go games, plus laid into USUM for being shameless retreads of Sun and Moon. I have no problem calling out problems when I see them, but charging the very standard and typical $60 for a brand-new Switch game, in this case a comprehensive, fully-featured HD generation 8 Pokémon RPG (which I’m certain to sink hundreds of hours into) is not one of them. And sure, I don’t love that Pokémon is always split into two versions, but that’s nothing new. Suddenly blaming Sword and Shield for continuing a tradition that has been going on for 20+ years is kind of arbitrary, don’t you think?

@psanco I'm sorry, but yes you are making assumptions and I don't mean to come across rude , but you are wrong to assume this Capcom pricing issue with these Capcom games has anything to do with Nintendo (other than maybe Capcom trying to imitate Nintendo's "quality" standard with their unwavering pricing model, but perhaps that was your point). But again - in this case, that's totally on Capcom, not Nintendo. Unfortunately Capcom simply cannot imitate the way Nintendo prices their games because they (like everyone but Nintendo) discount far too quickly and far too often, and have proven to consumers that after 2 months or so their games are not worth full price. Again - that is on Capcom, not Nintendo.

And when you say "Nintendo make it more alluring to get your products physical with inflated digital pricing," you are also making more incorrect assumptions - the digital pricing is not inflated. It is exactly the same as the MSRP of the physical versions. Whether you believe that the digital price should be lower than the physical price, is irrelevant (personally I'd love to get all my digital games as cheap as possible too, but alas...) Here is a helpful, informative and fun little video to explain why this is (even though you may still dislike the explanations given [which is also perfectly valid]).

That's fine with me! I still have the wii version and have yet to play it. (Completed on ps2 first) I know I'll be using the wii zapper for extra fun when I do. Graphics aren't a big issue, however 0 and 1 hd will be great. I'll most likely import it from the US. As for dragon's dogma? Never liked it on the ps3! So that's a skip.

But the difference between retail and digital atm is terrible. If it was only 1 or 0 separately on a card, i would wait for discount and get digital because what you can get for $10 on eshop will cost like $30 in a used game shop like CEX. I never go there for switch titles, ever. Sadly, CEX must be aware, because people point out that most of the time they can be the same as brand new or ever upto 5 dollars more. So we're stuck when we want a cheaper used copy, it just doesn't happen. Luckily, i just bought a 128 gb card for a few games, something I usually won't do, but the price difference can't be argued with.

@NintndoNik I'm not really making any points here about Capcom but it's entirely quite a different situation here in Europe. Where as I said prices are in fact inflated for their digital equivalents, Mario Odyssey released here and was purchasable at around just over £40 physical but was priced at £59.99 digital. I didn't realize the situation was quite so different across the pond. Personally I'd like to believe better of Capcom but who really knows. Thanks for the video recommendation.